Some vehicles, such as underwater vehicles, have a fuel system that uses a fuel cell to provide power to the vehicle. Typically, these fuel cells are supplied with kerosene and oxygen to produce power. These fuel cells also produce carbon dioxide as an effluent. In such power systems, the oxygen supplied to the fuel cell is stored in storage tanks, which are connected to the fuel cell. The resulting carbon dioxide is collected and stored in separate storage tanks.
In existing power systems of such vehicles, the oxygen is stored as a liquid in storage tanks arranged adjacent to each other. Before supplying the oxygen to the fuel cell, the liquid oxygen in these tanks may need to be boiled off, such that the oxygen supplied to the fuel cell is in a gaseous state. However, the heat supplied to one of the tanks for boiling off the oxygen may dissipate to the other tanks in the vicinity, thereby increasing the temperature and consequently, the pressure in the storage tanks adjacent to the tank that is being supplied with heat.
In an attempt to reduce the effect of the dissipated heat on the other tanks located in the vicinity, the tanks are conventionally made with insulated vacuum gaps to reduce the amount of heat that may leak into the unused tanks. However, because of the insulated gaps, these tanks take up a larger volume. Further, because there may still be some heat leak into the storage tanks despite the insulated gaps around the storage tanks, the fluids in the tanks may expand due to an increase in pressure. In order to account for the possibility of fluid expansion, these conventional tanks are typically only partially-filled, thereby requiring tanks with greater volume to store the amount of fuel desired.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.